The glass window gleamed in front of them, filling the entire wall and curving slightly into floor and ceiling. It looked out on the side of the Phoenix facing away from the sun, into the shadow the ship cast across the flight pad outside. With the lounge lights on, the group’s reflections stared back at them, shimmery and indistinct, seeming to swim between the ground and the slightly concave surface of the glass.
Sofia hurried to one of the little tables fixed to the floor, choosing the one farthest from the viewing panel. “I seriously hate this bit,” she said when she caught Elissa’s quick glance. “And please don’t tell me how illogical that is, okay?”
There was a panicky edge to her voice. Elissa shook her head, sending Sofia a hopefully reassuring smile. “I won’t.”
“It’s not actually illogical,” said Jay behind her, his voice calm and interested. “I was reading about it on Sam’s bookscreen just last night. Statistics show that the most dangerous point in the flight is during liftoff.”
Sofia snapped a look up at him, and he must have taken the expression on her face as one of interest, because he continued, “It’s not just because of accidents due to technical failure or pilot error—the book said it’s also the time when passengers are most likely to inadvertently injure themselves, and to have what are believed to be psychosomatic nosebleeds, brought on by the knowledge that the air pressure outside the ship has changed, even though there’s no physical change within the actual ship—”
“Oh my God,” said Sofia. “Do you think that’s even a bit helpful?”
Jay stopped, his face surprised, and Samuel laughed. “Hey, you said you didn’t want to be told it was illogical. Jay’s totally helping you out.”
“He’s really not,” Sofia said, her voice tight. “Jeez, you two are linked, he should be more socialized than Zee and El, not less.”
The grin fell from Samuel’s face. “Hello? Let’s not talk about people like they’re not here, yeah?”
Emily Greythorn hurried toward them. “Guys? Is everything okay?”
The low thunder of the engines rumbled through the room, the steel auto-safety shutter slid across the glass, and Sofia’s face went rigid, her fingers locking together in her lap. Emily took a seat next to her.
“Breathe, Sofia. It’ll be over in minutes.”
The ship took off with that stomach-swooping rush that the best antithrust cushioning couldn’t entirely eliminate, and Sofia went faintly green. Over by the shutter, Lin stood, her fingers spread on it as if to feel every vibration of the accelerating ship as it blasted through the envelope of Sekoia’s atmosphere. The first time they’d done this, her face had lit with the first expression of pure happiness Elissa had ever seen on it. This time, though, she reached out as if for comfort, as if to touch the thing that, despite everything else, had remained constant. She’d done everything wrong, couldn’t be a real human after all, but at least engines still roared, ships still flew. Outside the world that hated and feared her, the world she’d never be able to understand, space was still black and endless and . . .
Just as it dawned on Elissa that she had, once again, tapped inadvertently into her twin’s thoughts, the acceleration eased. The lights of the room dimmed as the shutter lifted away into the ceiling. Outside, green and blue and white, Sekoia shone against a background of space, a background that was black and endless and . . .
. . . filled with more stars than you can ever count. Stars that make everything else small. The words came into Elissa’s head, but she didn’t know whether they were her own thoughts or her sister’s.
As she slid a look toward Lin—I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. I messed up, I never meant to make you feel less than human—her gaze caught on Zee.
Like most of the others, Zee was standing near the window. Elissa remembered Ady saying I don’t know how he’s going to be able to get on a ship for relocation. . . . It looked as though it wasn’t a problem after all. Maybe the experience of being on this ship was so different. . . .
Then she noticed how Zee was standing.
He was motionless, motionless as if he’d forgotten how to move—as if, Elissa thought, looking at his face, he’d forgotten that a concept like moving even existed. Fugue state. Like Ady said, he’s checked out of his normal consciousness.
His face was still turned toward the window. Is it really a fugue state? Or is it just that’s he is struggling, that he’s standing so still because he’s trying to hold it together? Elissa moved so she was looking at the sheet of glass from the same angle as he was.
Although the lights had dimmed when the shutter lifted, an automatic setting to allow the lounge occupants an unobstructed view of the planet they were leaving, the strips of amber safety lights at the edges of the room had remained lit, creating little oases of reflected images. Zee wasn’t looking at the stars. He was looking at his twin’s reflection.
That’s how he looked at Ady on the flyer. That’s how Ady said he’s been looking at him. This time, a chill went over her. It’s not okay. It’s really not okay. There has to be something wrong with him for him to look like that.
Over by Sofia’s table, Emily Greythorn got up from her chair. The movement brought her in front of the bit of strip light that was reflecting in the glass, and the glowing, floating sphere of Sekoia replaced Ady’s reflection.
Zee didn’t move immediately, at least not that Elissa could see, but all the same his body lost that statuelike appearance, and even before he turned away from the glass, she knew he’d relaxed, knew his eyes had lost that blank, fixed stare. Knew he’d—what was the term Ady had used?—checked back in.
The whoosh of displaced air caught Elissa’s attention, and she turned to see the door to the lounge dilating, each panel sliding smoothly away into the wall. Ivan came in, sweeping a glance across the room—a glance that maybe wasn’t quite as casual as it seemed. “Lissa. Lin. Felicia’s asked to see you.”
“Both of us?” Lin’s voice was spiky with reluctance. She didn’t take her hand from the glass.
“Yep,” said Ivan. His expression and voice were both perfectly relaxed, but all the same they left Elissa unable to refuse. She’d tried not to let it be obvious that she and Lin weren’t speaking, but she guessed it wasn’t surprising that the Phoenix’s crew members would have picked up that something was wrong. I don’t want them interfering, though. I don’t want more advice.
She left the viewing panel, her eyes flickering instinctively toward Zee before she did. I don’t know what’s wrong with him—God, given what he’s been through, for all I know it could be any one of a million different psychiatric conditions. But it’s something. Something that needs to be dealt with. If Ady hasn’t talked to someone by tomorrow morning, I’m going to do it for him.
Ady sent her a brief smile as she turned away, and from the back of the room Sofia looked up, catching her eye as she went past. The crew—Ivan and Felicia and Markus—had started to feel like family after they’d survived their third . . . fourth? . . . crisis together. The other Spares and their twins . . . okay, not all of them felt that way to Elissa, not yet. But Sofia was getting there, and Ady . . . and even Zee, despite that edge of unease Elissa had felt when she saw him staring, empty eyed, at his twin’s reflection. He was damaged, probably even more damaged than Lin, but all the same . . .
He’s one of us. For the first time the thought came to her: The Spares are different from ordinary people, everyone knows that. But we—their twins—we’re different too. Either because we are twins, or just because of our connection to them. The Spares aren’t normal humans. And neither are Sofia or Ady or me.
She and Lin reached the door at the same time. Elissa paused, letting Lin go ahead of her. For half a second, her sister’s eyes met hers, and all at once Elissa felt as if she were falling. As if gravity had been taken away and she were tipping, slowly cartwheeling, helpless, above . . . below? . . . within? . . . an endless void. Lin’s face held so much pain. It wasn’t just that it hur
t to see it: It felt as if it had snatched away Elissa’s surroundings.
Ivan was already walking away down the corridor. Elissa moved through the doorway, a couple of steps after Lin. The door snapped shut behind her, and they were suddenly more alone than they’d been since that horrible fight in the hospital.
“Lin,” she said, low, urgent, not even knowing what she was going to say but knowing it had to be something.
Lin looked back, her face bleak, her eyes haunted, and the words came to Elissa before she needed to think them.
“Listen,” she said. “I’m lost, and terrified, and angry, and I don’t know how to deal with any of the stuff that’s been happening. But it doesn’t change anything. It might”—she gestured, a helpless movement—“it might change stuff about you—or me. But it doesn’t change us.”
Lin’s face quivered. She set her teeth hard in her lower lip, and Elissa saw the blood leave it. “Everything’s wrong,” she said, her voice a defeated whisper. “I can’t . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know how to live in this world. I . . . I’m not sure I know how to live on any world.”
“Lin . . .” Elissa reached out automatically. Her twin’s hands were cold, unresponsive in hers. The idea that Lin was blaming herself for the stupid, messed-up society Sekoia had developed went through her like pinpricks of ice. “That’s the world’s fault, not yours.”
“Yes.” For a moment Elissa thought that her sister’s response meant Lin was listening to her, accepting her argument. Then Lin’s eyes came up to hers again. “I know,” she said. “I know it’s not my fault. Those people down there—you wanted to come back and help them. I don’t know why. They’re not worth it.”
Elissa’s insides lurched. “Lin, no. You met some really crappy ones—that doesn’t mean they’re all like that. And—”
“And they’re people, and we should care about them just because they’re people.” The words sounded tired, recycled, as if all meaning had been crushed out of them. Lin shut her eyes, exhaustion all over her face, and leaned against the wall next to her. “No. I’m done. I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it. They don’t care about people like me, and I don’t care about people like them.” Her eyelids lifted, as heavy as if invisible weights were tied to her lashes. “It’s no good, Lissa. You want to make me like you. I’m not like you. I’m not going to be.”
Then what are you going to be like? If you won’t care about people, what sort of person will you be?
“Girls?” said Ivan, at the end of the section of corridor, his hand on the doorpad. “We haven’t actually reached the med-bay, you know.”
Lin pushed off from the wall and moved down the corridor toward him as he opened the door and stepped through it.
Elissa made herself hurry after her sister. “Lin,” she said, her voice low, “Ivan’s ‘people like them.’ And Cadan, and Felicia, and—”
“I know.” As she walked, Lin crossed her arms, as if for warmth, or comfort, or to hold herself together. “They’re different.”
“But if you’re willing to admit they’re different, then that shows not all people are . . . like, bad, uncaring.” Elissa’s words were tumbling out now, driven by sudden panicky desperation to convince Lin that she had to see the rest of their species as worth caring about, no matter how lousy some of them were. She’s not naturally a sociopath. She’s not. She can’t decide to become one!
“No,” Lin said again. This time there was impatience in her voice. “They’re only different ’cause they behaved different. It doesn’t mean I have to see every person as a potential Ivan or Cadan. I’ll care about them if they make me. I’m not going”—and now not just impatience, but anger, stabbed through her voice—“I’m not going to try, Lissa. I’m not going to try to care about people who’d like to see me back in the facility!”
They went through another door, and it snapped shut behind them. Even as Lin walked, she kept her arms wrapped tightly around herself, and when she looked back at Elissa her face was set in tense lines. “So?” she said, and the word would have sounded belligerent if her eyes weren’t so terrified. “Does that change us?”
For a split second Elissa shut her eyes, an instinctive movement to cut herself off from what Lin was saying—from what she was asking of Elissa. “I don’t know. I don’t know yet. I’m . . . it’s too much to process.”
It’s still me.
For a moment she thought Lin had said it out loud, then she realized the words had sounded not in her ears but in her head.
“I know,” Elissa answered. “But I . . .” I’m scared. You already did some pretty awful stuff, while you were still trying not to be a psychopath. Now, if you’re not even trying . . . I’m scared. I’m scared of what you might do.
She knew she wouldn’t manage to censor her thoughts, knew Lin would pick them up anyway, so didn’t even try. But what she hadn’t expected was for her sister to pick up the thoughts she hadn’t verbalized, the underneath, too-painful-to-look-at fears she couldn’t help.
“You’re scared I’ll hurt you?” It was a cry of betrayal. Lin stopped dead in the middle of the corridor, the faded color in her face ghastly in the bluish lights, every line in her body seeming to vibrate with shock and pain. Ahead of them, Ivan halted with his hand halfway up to the next doorpad, his head jerking back to look at them in alarm.
“Lin—”
“No. You said, you said back when you’d only known me a few days, you said you trusted me not to hurt you!”
“Lin, I’m still processing it. I told you—”
Lin shook her head, her eyes huge and panicked. “You said, you said—”
“I know what I said—”
Lin was still shaking her head, not listening, lost in fear and distress. “You said, you told me”—the words came out with just the inflections Elissa recalled using, as if Lin had not so much remembered as recorded them, holding them in her brain like a guarantee of safety—“you told me: ‘Whatever you do, it doesn’t make any difference.’ You can’t just take that away. You—you—”
Her voice cracked. She was shivering all over now, hugging herself, her fingers digging into her upper arms.
Elissa looked at her in despair. She’d reassure her sister if she could, but she was so screwed up herself, she’d never be able to lie with any conviction—and even if she did, Lin would read her mind and know. “I’m not taking anything away. Lin, I’m just trying to work it out.”
“Lin.” She hadn’t noticed Ivan come back toward them. “Sweetheart, come on now. Give your sister a minute.”
Lin was crying now. Every nerve in Elissa’s body shrank from the sound. Ivan put his arm around Lin. “Okay, calm down. What’s going on? What are you girls doing to each other?”
Elissa couldn’t tell if there was accusation in the question, but, every emotion scraped raw, she responded as if there were. “I can’t help it, Ivan! I can’t tell her something that’s not true even if it’ll make her feel better!”
Ivan’s face stayed calm; all his voice betrayed was an unperturbed amusement. “Your telepathic twin? Well, of course you can’t.”
“I’m not asking her to tell me something that’s not true. But she said, she said . . .” Tears choked Lin’s voice, making her stop.
“Come on,” said Ivan. “Let’s just get as far as Felicia’s room, okay?”
Arm around Lin, he steered her down the corridor, through the next few doors and into the glossy-white med-bay.
Felicia was sitting in an egg-shaped chair, tipped back and hugely padded. One of her arms was free, but the other was strapped carefully immobile. Webbing ran over her bandaged shoulder, and a monitor in the side of the chair bleeped quietly and steadily.
She looked a whole bunch older than she had doing yoga in the cabin of the Phoenix less than two days ago. Her already pale skin had lost so much color it looked as if it were thinner than usual, and under her eyes and her lips were the same alarming shade—a bruised-looking slate blue.
Reassuringly, there was nothing faded about the bright, alert look she gave them as they entered. She started to speak, then broke off. “Lin? What’s happened? Lissa, what’s wrong with her?”
Ivan steered Lin into a chair close to Felicia’s and nodded to Elissa to pull out another for herself. “Issues,” he said. “You talk to them. I’ll get hot chocolates.”
Felicia sent him a smile. “Yes please.”
“You’re not going to throw up on me, are you?” Ivan eyed her suspiciously.
“Not if I can have a hot chocolate. If I don’t get anything in my stomach soon, though, I might throw up just in protest.”
Ivan shrugged, going over to the nutri-machine in the corner of the room. “You know your body best, I guess.”
Felicia laughed. “After forty-two years, I ought to.” Her gaze moved to Lin, who was shivering and hunting through her pockets. “Tissues are behind you, sweetie. What’s going on? What’s gone wrong?”
Lin had started to wipe her face, but at this another sob shook her. She clenched the tissue in her fist, shoulders bowed as if she were carrying a weight so heavy it was painful. Her voice came out so obscured by tears that Elissa could hardly understand her, and she was amazed that Felicia seemed to.
“She thinks I’ll hurt her.” Another sob choked Lin as she spoke. “Lissa—she thinks I could hurt her. I couldn’t—couldn’t ever—”
“Lin,” Elissa said, despairing and exhausted, left without any of the right words or thoughts . . . or anything . . . to make things better, to fix the damage she—they—had caused each other and themselves.
“Okay,” said Felicia. “Just hang on a few minutes.” Then, as Lin began to choke out something else, “Just a few minutes, okay, Lin? Give yourselves time to breathe. Let Ivan work his magic on the nutri-machine.”
She took a breath herself, leaning her head back against the padded surface of her chair. “I didn’t ask to see you so I could make you cry, by the way. I wanted to say thank you. And good work. Both of you.” She grinned. “Not that I noticed at the time, but afterward, when they’d patched me up . . . Oh, and I don’t know what the malls are like on Philomel, but I hope they’re halfway decent, at least. I owe you each a hoodie.”
Unravel Page 27
